THE UK’s Vote Leave government has shown itself time and time again to be incompetent during the coronavirus crisis – but you wouldn’t always know that going by some sections of the British press.
Despite a catastrophic death toll and PPE scandal, many in the media are far more interested in the name of Boris Johnson’s baby.
For foreign onlookers, however, the scale of the disaster is all too obvious.
Nowhere is this better articulated than an article published yesterday by the Sydney Morning Herald.
Named 'Biggest failure in a generation: Where did Britain go wrong?’, the interpretation of the Westminster’s government’s handling of the crisis is fairly unambiguous.
The piece points to “a growing chorus of health experts, MPs and members of the public who think Britain's response to the crisis has suffered from a series of deadly mistakes and miscalculations”.
It continues: “The charges focus on four areas: that healthcare workers struggled to access personal protective equipment, that Britain was too slow to implement a lockdown, that it bungled testing, and that vulnerable care home residents were not properly protected.”
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Whereas Australia and New Zealand have been highly effective in closing their borders to prevent the spread of the virus, the article notes that 3.1 million people arrived in the UK last month via Heathrow Airport.
“Home Secretary Priti Patel supported a ban on travellers who had been in hotspots but was slapped down by Downing Street," the article reads. "When this spat was under way, Australia's borders had already been closed for a week to all foreign travellers.”
The piece also notes scathing criticism from leading medical experts.
Dr Richard Horton, editor in chief of The Lancet medical journal, is quoted as saying: "The handling of the COVID-19 crisis in the UK is the most serious science policy failure in a generation."
And former Australian high commissioner to Britain, Mike Rann, commented: "The earliest stages were handled negligently. A shambles of mixed messaging, poor organisation and a complacent attitude that what was happening in Italy wouldn't happen here."
Boris Johnson’s government may have pulled the wool over the eyes of many in the UK press, but they’ve not fooled everyone.
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